Tim Davie: Last News

The BBC is likely to reduce the amount of content it produces rather than cutting whole channels in order to make massive savings, according to Director General Tim Davie, who had to deflect tricky questions about its relationship with disgraced DJ Tim Westwood.

The BBC has attempted to prove its worth in the face of the incoming licence fee freeze by publishing a landmark study in which households had to go without all of the corporation’s services for nine days.

K.J. Yossman The BBC has unveiled its latest statistics regarding disability and ethnicity representation in a new impact report.The data is taken from the corporation’s 50:50 Project, an initiative which “uses a methodology that is rooted in data, creativity, practicality and passion to fundamentally shift representation within the media.”The 50:50 Project’s 2022 impact report shows that following 18 months of monitoring, BBC teams have increased disability and ethnicity representation, with 53% of teams monitored achieving their targets for disability representation, an increase of 35 percentage points over the last year and a half.65% of monitored teams achieved their targets for ethnicity representation, an increase of seven percentage points from 18 months ago.

Damon Buffini, a Founding Partner of global investment firm Permira, is to chair the BBC’s Commercial Board, a move that reflects the corporation’s desire to generate more investment from BBC Studios, as it unveils an Annual Plan that includes targets for 25% working class representation and hints at incoming cuts.

Naman Ramachandran The BBC World Service has sought and will receive £4.1 million ($5.4 million) in additional funding to counter disinformation around the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The emergency funding would to help the BBC “continue bringing independent, impartial and accurate news to people in Ukraine and Russia in the face of increased propaganda from the Russian state,” the U.K.

MasterChef will be back very soon… though you might not recognise it right away. The BBC has confirmed that the 2002 series of the cookery competition will officially kick off on BBC One on Wednesday, March 23, back at the earlier time of 8pm. There will be a shift in schedules for the rest of the week with the show not airing at all on Thursday, and then a double bill from 8pm to 9.

K.J. Yossman The BBC has resumed reporting from Russia after suspending it last week in light of draconian new censorship laws.“We have considered the implications of the new legislation alongside the urgent need to report from inside Russia,” the broadcaster said in a statement.

The BBC’s website, Facebook and Twitter were all blocked in Russia overnight.

BBC Studios has appointed Lorraine Burgess, the former MD of Idris Elba’s Green Door Pictures, as Chief Financial Officer.

The BBC has struck a six-year deal for the MasterChef franchise and is moving production from London to Birmingham.

Manori Ravindran International EditorThe BBC is handing one of its juggernaut shows a multi-season renewal and moving production outside of London for the first time since 2001.Cooking competition series “MasterChef,” produced by Banijay U.K.-owned Shine TV, has been renewed for six more seasons, and is moving from London to Birmingham from 2024. The relocation is part of the BBC’s six-year “Across the U.K.” strategy, which was first announced in March 2021 and committed $978 million to expanding key services outside of London and further afield in the U.K.

EastEnders bosses have responded to the schedule shake-up for the hit ITV soaps, Coronation Street and Emmerdale. In January, ITV confirmed that it would be moving the two hit soaps to a new air time that would conflict with the beloved BBC series. The ITV soaps are moving their scheduled times so Emmerdale will now air at 7.30pm every day, rather than 7pm.

EXCLUSIVE: “Bringing BBC Three back to linear TV” would have been far down former BBC Director General Tony Hall’s list of predictions for his successor’s first major piece of business.

Sally Wainwright, Daisy May Cooper and the hosts of Top Gear, along with senior BBC execs, will address next month’s BBC Studios Showcase, as the commercial outfit unveils a packed lineup for the online-only event.

BBC director general Tim Davie has said that the freezing of TV licence fees will cost the broadcaster £285million.Davie said the new settlement, set to stop the cost of licence fees increasing for the next two years, “will affect our frontline output” and prompt cuts across services and content.Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries said of the decision yesterday (January 17): “The BBC must support people at a time when their finances are strained, make savings and efficiencies, and use the billions in public funding it receives to deliver for viewers, listeners and users.”“Inevitably, if you don’t have £285million, you will get less services and less programmes,” Davie subsequently told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Tuesday (January 18).“Now, I still think the BBC can offer extraordinary value for £13 a month.”Regarding potential cuts to accommodate for a stagnating licence fee until 2024, Davie continued: “We go first to those cuts where we don’t affect our output…We are not at the place where you can never make cuts, but this will affect our frontline output. There’s no doubt about that.”He went on to acknowledge the BBC “[needs] to reshape ourselves for a digital age”.“The media market is moving extremely rapidly,” he added.

BBC Director General Tim Davie has said yesterday’s licence fee settlement will leave the public broadcaster with a shortfall of £285M ($390M) in 2027/2028 and needing to save around $1.5BN (£2.1BN) across the next five years.

The BBC licence fee will be frozen for the next two years by the UK government before returning to an inflationary rise, which will likely cripple the corporation’s programming budgets.

High-profile figures were rallying behind the beleaguered BBC yesterday after reports emerged that the UK government plans to freeze the licence fee for two years and scrap it entirely in 2027.

Jana Bennett, the British and U.S. TV powerhouse who ran BBC TV, BBC Worldwide and History, has died aged 66. She is survived by husband Richard Clemmow and two children.

BBC Director General Tim Davie has blamed personal error rather than swingeing cuts to its news team for last month’s heavily-criticized Alan Dershowitz interview, which came immediately after the guilty Ghislaine Maxwell verdict.

ITN CEO Deborah Turness, a former NBC News President, has been appointed CEO of BBC News and Current Affairs, replacing Fran Unsworth.